Hanging during POST

gavinpoo

gavinpoo

gavinpoo

Associate
Joined
25 Sep 2003
Posts
433
Location
Derbyshire
I hope someone can help me with a problem I'm having - when I press the power button I'll get a single short beep suggesting everything is ok, then...

Sometimes it'll freeze during POST at:

PC2-6400 Dual Channel Interleaved
Initializing USB Controllers .. Done.

If it manages to pass this point it'll sometimes freeze at:

Checking NVRAM...

On a couple of occasions it hasn't beeped at all and my monitor remained in standby. If I perform hard resets it will eventualy boot.

I ran memtest overnight and it found no errors.
I ran orthos overnight with no issues.
I have removed, cleaned and reseated memory and video card with no improvement.
I have tried disconnecting all drives and USB devices and issues remained.

The strange thing about this is that once I get it to boot to Windows I can switch off and restart and it'll behave perfectly unless I leave it switched off for a few hours, and I can keep the computer switched on for a week or more with no errors. It's like the exact opposite of overheating. The computer has been running at current spec for two, maybe three years. Nothing is overclocked.

----------

In testing I think I've ruled out everything except motherboard and PSU. As the computer is running perfectly after passing POST from cold it's hard to know what to do next. As it's often hanging at 'Checking NVRAM' could this be due to a dodgy BIOS chip?

Any ideas of what to test next, or suggestions of what may be at fault would be greatly appreciated...

Spec is

Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Core2Duo E6600
4x1GB Corsair XMS6400 DDR2
Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 Ultimate
Seasonic S-12 600W (I think)

Thanks in advance.
 
Yes, Legacy USB support is disabled.

I don't think it's anything to do with USB. The hang is just before it says 4096MB OK. so I previously thought it was RAM but that checked out ok in memtest.

Am I right in saying that Checking NVRAM is to do with the BIOS chip?
 
I took the battery out and set the jumper this afternoon and just now tried my computer again. It consistently froze at Checking NVRAM again. After about 20 minutes of resetting it eventually booted to Windows.

It turns out a friend of mine has the same motherboard as me so I'm going to nick his BIOS chip and a graphics card just to rule those out.

Methanoid said:
Or selling that HD 4670 Ultimate ;)
Click to expand...

I'm very pleased with the card. It might not be the fastest but it's well worth the £60 to be able to sleep at night :)
 
Thanks for the suggestions but I think I've finally got to the bottom of it.

It would appear that the motherboard doesn't like having 4 sticks of RAM anymore. It's a shame the first thing I tried when I was getting problems was to run memtest, turned out to be a bit of a red herring. It doesn't appear to be specific to any slot or module, just that the motherboard has become more fussy with age. I'll investigate further, but at least now I'm able to boot properly :)
 
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